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A ST. BARTHS STUNNER Some properties exceed even the loftiest expectations. They ignite the senses and defy every notion of what a home most typically is. Simply put, they are art. Vue de Rêves, the most recent and perhaps most spectacular villa in Cuvée’s portfolio, is one such home. Taking the lessons learned from more than two decades of luxury real estate development and renovation, founder Larry Mueller’s vision was to build a space not on its surroundings but instead, around them. A space that would encapsulate everything the Cuvée brand had become – luxurious, distinctive, thoughtful and unrivaled. “When I first set eyes on this property, I knew it would become our piece de resistance,” Mueller explains. “It was an extremely dated home, but on perhaps the most spectacular piece of land I had ever seen. With views of the Baie de St. Jean and Nikki Beach at every turn, it was the canvas of our dreams.” With that, the aptly named Vue de Rêves (or View of Dreams) began to take shape. Yet much like the very model that is Cuvée, the construction process was anything but average. While the island of St. Barths is extremely beautiful, it is also extremely insulated, translating to architecture that is homogenous. Builders and designers native to the island all possess a relatively narrow perspective of the craft, with blueprints around St. Barths looking and feeling similar from one to the next. Vue de Rêves is anything but. From concept to completion, the land itself guided the home’s development and design. Acutely aware of the property’s potential, Cuvée purchased Vue de Rêves (which sits on almost an acre of land) in 2013. Yet it remained untouched for nearly eighteen months while he and his guests lived in the space, gaining a genuine understanding of how it functioned. The team ensconced themselves in the subtleties of the home, paying particular attention to how light enters each area, from sunrise to sunset and every hour in between. The way the natural glow moved throughout the space dictated the placement of windows, the direction of furnishings and even the division of rooms themselves. Every detail - from sight to smell to sound - impacted the experience. It’s a notion that Mueller calls “designing as you go” and it personifies the very essence of the company’s growing real estate portfolio. “We weren’t looking to simply renovate a luxury home. We wanted to create a piece of art that was built to enhance the property’s natural assets,” he says. “It took us three years because for the first half of the process, we were absorbing the space and all that it was. It takes a very intimate level of understanding in order to get it right and with Vue de Rêves, we did that.”
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SIR AND SP ORT • SPRING | SUMMER 2017
By Betsy Marr Photos by Laurent Benoit